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� Council Highlights -
Tribal Gaming Dept. formation approved
By Bonnie Red Elk Wotamim Editor
Despite initial opposition from the Tribal-State Revenue Oversight Commission, which has been overseeing tribal gaming on the Fort Peck Reservation, the Tribal Executive Board at their meeting on March 24 voted to form a Tribal Gaming Department with funds from the commission budget to operate separately and as a new tribal department.
The new Gaming Dept. will consist of the supervisor, who is Jesse Kim Jr., Poplar, and two technicians, George Buck, Frazer, and Lena Siljenberg, Wolf Point. Their budget amount is yet to be determined but will not be an additional cost in tribal dollars, however the tribal budget amount will be increased because funds for the new department will be transferred from the commission budget, which was funded entirely by revenues from tribally owned gaming machines.
The new department budget
will consist of salaries for the 3 employees, travel and training funds, and funds to purchase new gaming machines.
The 3-member commission is a regulatory body and should not be involved in the day to day operations of tribal gaming, said Reservation Development Committee chairman Gene Culbertson. "This should have been done long ago."
Commission chairman Sidney Bird requested that the TEB not act on the recommendation for the new department until the commission could develop a tribal gaming plan and present it to the Reservation Development Committee prior to the next TEB meeting on Monday, April 14.
A substitute motion to table the recommendation until the commission presents a gaming plan was defeated by a vote of 3 for (Robert Welch, Ray White Tail Feather, John Morales) and 9 opposed (Barbara Birdsbill, James Gran-
(Highlights- Page 10)
Mother takes on state in child support issue
Tribes refer case to attorneys
The State's Child Support Division has confiscated the drivers license of at least two tribal members on the reservation who say the State has no jurisdiction, and the Tribal Executive Board's Reservation Safety Committee voted to send the matter to their attorneys to handle.
Agnes Ward told the committee on March 25 that her son was court ordered through the Tribes to pay child support, but he wasn't working at the time. But when he did get a job, he started making support payments to
the Tribal Court, she said. This was a non-AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) case, she said, and questions why the State got involved.
Her son started getting letters from the State Child Support Division that he had to start making his support payments through the State rather than Tribal Court or his driver's license would be taken away, said Ward, and eventually that happened in November, 1996.
(State - Page 9)
� � �
9{ptu tfuLt the sr.o�t is gone...
...all the trash that was hidden out of sight and out of mind can now be seen, and in some areas, like around this garbage can in Poplar, looks terrible. Residents reservation-wide are uged to sweep Fort Peck clean in the month of April, which has been designated as Clean Up Month.
April desigisated at Clean Up Month
Now that the snow is gone, communities reservation-wide have a big job ahead of them -cleaning up yards, alleyways, parks, empty lots and ditches along the roadways.
April 1997 has been designated as Clean Up Month as proclaimed by the Fort Peck Tribes and the City of Wolf Point. Clean up week has been set for the week of April 21, with Clean Sweep Day set for Sunday, April 27.
The Wolf Point Beautification Committee has been leading the way for the rest of the communities in it's purpose of making their city litter free and a more desireable place to live so that new businesses would locate and tourism would be promoted. Because Wolf Point was located on a reservation, local officials and residents used to rationalize that it was impossible to have a "cleaner" Wolf Point.
Forming the Wolf Point Beautification Committee was the first time that both the Indian and non-Indian
communities have combined energies for one goal, and both parties realized the importance of working
together or Wolf Point would continue to deteriorate.
April - (Page 9)
It is hereby proclaimed by the Mayor of the City of Wolf Point and the Chairman of Fort Peck Tribes:
THAT:
APRIL 1997 IS DESIGNATED AS: CLEAN UP MONTH
AND THAT:
APRIL 21st IS CLEAN UP WEEK
AND THAT:
APRIL 27th IS CLEAN SWEEP DAY '97
Rick Isle
Mayor of Wolf Point
Caleb Shields Chaman Fort Peck As si ni boi ne Sioux Tribes
� Death -
Burshia gets 5 years
BILLINGS - Saying the death of Joseph Cloud Boy at the hands of her son, Michael Burshia, was caused by love and alcohol, Nancy Burshia cried out to the judge to please be lenient in his sentencing.
Burshia, 26, was sentenced last Friday, March 28 to 5 years in prison for the choking death of Cloud Boy, 28, who died June 9 when his windpipe was fractured during a fight that occurred in the earling morning hours at a drinking party at the New Bridge area 6 miles southeast of Poplar.
Chief U.S. District Judge Jack Shanstrom sentenced Burshia near the bottom end of sentencing guidelines that set the range for the crime at 57 to 71 months, and said he was taking into consideration the 500 letters sent in support of Burshia, and despite the fact that thert were another 1000 demanding a long prison term.
Burshia's mother asked that her son be sen* either to Yankton, SD, and that their second choice was Sandstone, MN. The judge said he was sending Burshia to Yankton, and if there was no toom there, then he would be sent to Sandstone.
Upon Burshia's release, the judge ordered him to be on 2 years supervised release, to report to the probation officer upon release, he cannot possess firearms, nor have alcohol, drugs or other substances, will have to enroll in an alcohol and drug program, and pay $1,337.67 in restitution to the Indian Health Service in a monthly amount to be determined by the probation officer.
According to testimony at the trial, Burshia saw Cloud Boy standing with his girlfriend, ran up to him and backhanded him. They got in-
(Burshia - Page 2)
New federal agency for trust monies, resources proposed
By April 15, the Office of the Special Trustee is required to submit a plan to Congress on how the trust monies and trust resources - including land, water, timber and minerals - that belong to tribes and individual Indians would be managed by a new federal agency being proposed.
Tribal Chairman Caleb Shields, who's played a prominent role in recent national tribal meetings held to discuss the draft plan, reported to the Tribal Executive Board at the March 24 council meeting that the Office of Special Trustee (OST) director Paul Hohman will also be drafting a budget request to Congress to provide $150 million in new monies to fund the new agency which would be called the American Indian Trust and Development Administration (AITDA).
Shields is predicting that there will be "gridlock" on the plan and budget because the Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt is opposed to it, and for the most part, tribes are also opposed to it because there are too many unanswered questions. "I feel it could die," he said.
Most tribes would like to see any new money put into the Bureau of Indian Affairs to better manage trust monies and resources, but Shields said Congress is not likey to do that because in the history of the BIA, they have shown they couldn't handle proper accounting for billions of trust dollars.
There arc pros and cons to the plan, we'll just have to wait to see if Congress will fund it, especially if the Secretary of
...many critical questions concerning trust responsibility have arisen but were not adequately answered in the plan. "Unless there is adequate tribal input, there is considerable risk that these issues will be resolved in a manner that is not responsible to tribal needs."
Interior is opposed, Shields said, but something has to be done to better manage our resources.
A series of meetings have been held with tribes and tribal organizations to discuss the draft plan. Chairman Shields, with the assistance of the Tribes' attorneys, presented a series of questions and preliminary comments on the draft on March 17 and 18 in Denver, CO.
Under the draft "strategic plan", many critical questions concerning trust responsibility have arisen but were not adequately answered in the plan or by the Special Trustee. The issues raised by the plans are important and how those issues are resolved may well shape the fundamental aspects of the relationship between the tribes and the federal government for years to come, warned the Tribes attorneys in a memo to them on March 24.
The revised version of the plan will not be provided to tribes before it's presented to Congress, however, it is expected that it will generate considerable interest at the Interior Dept. and in Congress in the months ahead. The attorneys recommend that the tribes stay involved in the debate regafding these issues. "Unless there is adequate tribal input, there is considerable risk that these issues will be resolved in a manner that is not responsible to tribal needs," advised the attorneys.
Phase I of the plan would create the new federal agency - the AITDA - which would assume a broad range of responsibilities related to trust property management that are currently held by the BIA. The second phase would create a Trust Development Bank, which would provide banking services to tribes and individual Indians and serve as a source of capital for economic development funding in Indian country.
The plan proposed that AITDA would be a federal agency independent of the Interior Dept. and reporting directly to Congress. It would be administered by a board of directors made up of six members - 3 Native Americans and 3 financial experts.
The plan proposed one initial task for the new agency would be the upgrading and establishing a centralized computer and
(Proposal - Page 9)